Human Resources Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2006

[Bradley George]

Part of the strategy we have right now is succession planning and dealing with succession planning. We have, in our studies, recognized that 70% of the workers, the owners of small businesses in Canada and in this province, will retire in the next ten years, and that's frightening. Forty per cent of the business owners in this country and province will retire in the next five years. And what's frightening is that small and medium-sized business owners are not prepared to pass on their businesses. We're going to find many small and medium-sized businesses prepared to close because they don't have anybody.

I'll go back to the example of that garage owner who just lost his son. What's he going to do? If he closes, we've lost employment; we've lost job growth; we've lost a part of our economy. We are working currently--we just had a symposium in Ottawa last week, as a matter of fact--on succession. We brought academics, lawyers, and financial people together. We need to start educating government on the fact that they need to get involved. We need to get tax people involved. More importantly, we need to get our business community involved, and we need to tell them that this is important and that they need to start planning for the future.

We have governments right now that are funding entrepreneurs, young people, to start businesses. What about the person working in a business, who, when the owner retires, wishes to take over that business? Access to financing is a huge concern for small business owners, but what about the person who wants to start that business? He'll end up turning to his Visa, his family. Preparations for leaving a business are not there. That's a huge concern.

We are actually preparing some questions now to talk about allowing older workers to stay in the workforce. That's a possibility. A few years ago the government raised the RRSP deduction limit to help owners when they retire, but in terms of business owners who are going to retire, that's going to be a huge issue in the next five to ten years. We need to help prepare for those retirements. That's a significant concern, as is education.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

You are talking about a national strategy and national standards, but what is the strategy of the businesses?

For example, is it possible, on the one hand, that more experienced workers act as mentors for a number of employees before they leave?

On the other hand, if some workers want to postpone their retirement, could we provide for shorter weeks and, at the same time, have a targeted strategy for a number of other employees, in order to transfer the knowledge and know-how of older workers?

Did the businesses think about this or did they begin to take such measures? I do not think they need much research.

[Bradley George]

You're exactly correct. This is what small and medium-sized business owners, quite honestly, haven't thought about, and this is all part of the education process. If you're going to pass on your business, this is part of succession planning, and it involves picking someone to take over your business. A lot of people think it's a family member, but it's often not a family member. If you're going to have somebody move into your business, part of that involves growing that person, letting them move in, slowly letting them learn the business. And it involves educating that business owner himself or herself. You're right, it is something that we need to inform business owners about.

So it is an education thing for small and medium-sized business owners, which make up a huge portion of this country. 99% of the businesses in this country are small and medium-sized businesses.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. George, and thank you, Mr. Lessard. That's all the time we have.

Madame Savoie, you have five minutes.

[Denise Savoie, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I'd like to go back to the issue of poaching. It's only a negative concept if not everyone is contributing to the training or learning pool. If one level of government isn't there, or if the private sector isn't there, then it becomes an issue.

We're all noticing a trend toward provincializing our country and moving away from a national vision of what it means to be Canadian. It's a real problem when the mechanic's son goes to Alberta. If there were folks from Alberta going the other way, or if the training and learning was happening across the country and was supported by a strong federal leadership, it would be less of a problem.

I'm wondering how you could help, Mr. Allison, to be a little more subversive with this new party, in terms of our vision of this country as one in which the federal government still exerts leadership—recognizing the cultural specificity of Quebec and the educational sensitivities there, but recognizing that we are a country. I wonder if you have any comments, because there is a drift away from this vision right now.

[Kimberley Gillard]

I go back to the national strategy. The first step we see in outlining that strategy is the federal government's entering into provincial and territorial agreements. There have to be discussions so that we can build the vision yet respect individual needs.

When we look at the individual needs of the provinces and territories, there are similarities all across the country, so it makes it more cohesive. For example, Newfoundland and Labrador draw heavily on the work of Nunavut and the Northwest Territories with their aboriginal peoples.

Saskatchewan has an aboriginal literacy network that we would have liked to use as a model in our own province. We don't know if that's going to be possible. There are populations of French Canadians throughout the country. There are similarities there.

That's why, if we look at the country holistically, we can take advantage of those similarities while meeting our diverse needs. That's why we think that a national strategy would speak to a cohesive picture of lifelong learning for this country, but still work for the provinces and territories by engaging them.

[Ed Brown]

We find it to be rather contradictory, or a dichotomy, to fund a national body without a provincial feed-in. It's like taking the legs off something. You have the body there but you've got no legs. This is exactly how we feel. For all intents and purposes, from our perspective, the national body is now lifeless. I don't know what good it's going to do unless we are operating and feeding in.

As Kim said, we learn so much from each other. We pass things on, and it has to be that way. Otherwise, it's just as well to take the whole system right out and not have the thing. We're not going to be operating to feed into a national strategy or body. And across the country we're finding coalitions—who say they can't do this, that, or the other—withdrawing vital services that we've had in place.

So it counters everything we've always believed in. We would like to see a rationale for it, other than that the previous policy increased adult illiteracy. Besides, that's a term we never use anymore. It's negative and the worst term you could possibly attach to a person.

We've looked at this and asked why it was happening to us. We can't really see it. We have to start rethinking everything. We have volunteers who may stay in place, but it's probably easier to withdraw, because they're making the job so much more difficult.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Brown, and thank you, Madame Savoie.

I want to assure everyone who brought briefs that haven't been translated that we will take care of that and make sure all committee members get translated copies of that information.

I have a couple of questions for the medical association as well as for the private schools and colleges. First of all, Mr. Regan talked about scholarships, and I was going to touch on that as well. How long has your facility for rural medicine been in place?

[Dr. Michael Jong]

The Society of Rural Physicians has been in place for 14 years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I would assume that has probably increased the number of rural doctors available. So it's been an effective strategy.

[Dr. Michael Jong]

That's right. It's been a very linear growth. It started with only 40 of us 14 years ago; now there are more than 2,000 members.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Excellent.

I'll just comment on my own experience. I come from a town, Beamsville, just outside of Hamilton. We have a physician in that town who has worked with rural medicine at Mac, and I can assure you that what we've found when we've brought doctors into our area to practise at the local hospital is that they haven't stayed. I realize there are other challenges, but obviously that's been a very strategic initiative for you.

We do talk about skill shortages of doctors across the country, and certainly from province to province. There are a number of factors, and you mentioned some of them today. But what do you think is the greatest factor for the shortages? Has it been a reduction of spots overall? I realize that maybe funding and scholarships are some of the factors, but what are the greatest factors for shortages, as you seem them today?

[Dr. James Rourke]

In terms of rural doctors, I think part of the biggest issue is conveyed by the metaphor that when the grass turns brown in the suburbs, the drought in the country tends to be ignored, even though it gets worse. As we've had a larger Canadian shortage of doctors overall, the focus on the shortage in the rural areas has become less apparent. That's why it's really important for the committee to focus on the worsening shortage of rural doctors.

The number of Canadian medical students trained reached a low of 1,500. It's now back up to 2,400, but we need to continue to increase that number. We need to make sure the focus on that number continues to one of getting them right out to the country. Admit more students from the country, do more of their training in country locations, and provide support to the physicians and communities who are doing that in a bidirectional way, working with the universities. So decentralizing as much as possible of our training is important, and going beyond the Kitcheners and Windsors to the small communities is vital.

That's why we need champions like Karl Stobbe. We need someone like him in each medical school across the country to lead that charge, because it's maintaining that focus that's going to be absolutely vital.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Great. That's good to hear. It's good to see that the strategy is starting to pay off—although we have more work to do.

I'll now address my last couple of questions to Mr. Loder. I know that you talked about a couple of different things. I just want to confirm this, but right now it appears that most of your students, or probably all of them, don't receive any type of millennium scholarship—although they get student loans—or are they receiving them? I realize the scholarships are spaced every two and three years. Do you want to elaborate on that?

Then is it fair to assume that you don't receive any funding at all of any kind, by nature of being private schools, with the exception of tuition?

[James Loder]

Maybe I'll answer your first question first.

It's not accurate to say that no private career college students receive millennium scholarships. Millennium scholarships are set up for students who are enrolled in at least a two-year program; actually it's 90 weeks in duration. There are a minority of private career college programs that are more than that. I know that at my school we've had a number of students who have received millennium scholarships over the years, but they would be in the minority, not the majority. This points out the deficiencies for students who don't receive them, especially when their neighbour in the class or school is receiving a significant stipend for attending school. So some students do receive them, but they are in the minority.

Your second question is a great one. Private career colleges receive no subsidies from government to operate. I should clarify that by saying that student aid is a loan that's made to students, and there are also a number of federal and provincial programs that support students. Basically, Workers' Compensation and Service Canada will subsidize the education of students, but these involve grants in kind to the student, not to the individual institutions. So we operate purely on the basis of our own revenue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

That is all the time we have. Once again, I do want to thank everyone for coming out today. We appreciate your taking the time on this very important issue. As I said, there are many things that feed into unemployability, or the employability issue, and we certainly are hoping we can address those as a committee.

Thank you for being here today.

The meeting is adjourned.